What better way to celebrate Black History Month than to support black owned businesses? February is Black History month and The Klog wants to celebrate Black culture in and out of the beauty and skin care space. Black-owned businesses deserve support all year round, but this month specifically offers a special time to focus on the good that these brands bring to the beauty conversation. We’re rounding up 9 Black-founded skin care brands that are challenging the conversation about skin diversity and the beauty industry.

For clean, minimalist beauty product shots and honest reviews, @Gelcream is THE Instagram account to follow. Never heard of it? We’re about to introduce you to your latest obsession.As someone who works in and is obsessed with beauty, Instagram accounts that feature perfectly lit, perfectly flawless selfies and colorful, maximalist shelfies are my kind of eye candy.The adjectives mentioned above do not at all describe the account @Gelcream, and perhaps that’s why, contrary to everything I mentioned above, I’m such a fan of it. In a feed filled with images that can best be described as “extra”, a Gelcream post is a refreshing palette cleanser.If you’re not yet familiar, Gelcream’s posts often feature a well-manicured hand holding up a beauty product like the Hanacure mask, the Drunk Elephant C-Tango Eye Cream, or a Frederic Malle fragrance against a clean, softly-lit background, plus an honest review to go along with it.The account, started in 2016 by Yana Sheptovetskaya, a former fashion editor at Russian Vogue, has over 110K Instagram followers, its own merch, a slew of copycats, and notably, no sponcon.Recently, I had the chance to nerd out with Yana about beauty, Instagram, how the latter has influenced the former, and more. Read on for our full conversation.The Klog: When you started your account, were you setting out to do something different?Yana: When I started my Instagram I was not aware of the whole beauty movement on it, I took couple photos and posted them on my personal page and then decided to start a separate page for my beauty posts and that’s how @Gelcream was born, almost by an accident. I guess it attracted attention because I did what I felt like doing without looking at other pages, it was original and resonated with people. This is my advice – be yourself and think of how you want to see content, not others. I only post what I would enjoy seeing myself.It would be very easy for you to do ads and sponcon, but you don’t, which feels so refreshing. I think I know the answer, but why is it so important to you to not do sponsored posts? What do you think your followers’ reactions would be if you did?Again, it’s something I don’t enjoy seeing – I love my readers, we are friends and I feel like building mutual respect and trust is so important! I’m not motivated by money, I’m motived by the reason behind every action. I want my content to make people feel better or feel inspired. There is only one type of ad that I respect and love: beautiful campaigns, especially from the ’80-’90-’00s when teams would work hard on creating an image that takes your breath away. When there is no silly promo text, just the visual with smart copy – it gives you a some kind of a feeling and you can decide for yourself if you want to be a part of this brand’s universe or not. I wouldn’t mind having those on @Gelcream.I think beauty brands and the people behind these brands are used to influencers saying nice things about them. They don’t always seem to take negative – or let’s say honest – reviews well. You’ve experienced this firsthand, and I’m wondering if these experiences deter or embolden you?I love when the founders react! It is a great chance to get to know the brand better – I’ve seen such different responses and some made me fall in love with the brand, some – the opposite. Some brands silently blocked me and I think it also says a lot – if you are not willing to talk to your customer it means that you don’t care about her/him. So it’s very fascinating to see how brands react.Pretty product packaging is such a major thing now and I’d be lying if I said packaging doesn’t play a part in my own purchases. But I love how you’ll take a photo of something “un-photogenic” like pimple patches and somehow, they still look good! What makes you decide to photograph and feature a product if not packaging?I feature products that I have something to say about. Of course, packaging plays a big part – if I’m choosing between two similar products I would pick one that is prettier. The more products I try the harder it is; it’s harder to surprise me or make me feel excited. I think, that’s the main criteria: me being excited about either the look, feel or final effect of the product.Social media especially can make it difficult to not spend all of your money on more products than you’ll ever know what to do with. How do you reconcile being a product minimalist yourself while being a part of this, might I say materialistic, Instagram world? Oh it’s so hard! This is why I don’t post very often – it makes me feel bad knowing how many purchases I influence by a single post. I now add a note to every post that says: “please don’t buy this unless absolutely necessary”. And I always mention that happiness and mental health are key. I also noticed that the less products I use, the more i’m satisfied with my skin.There’s no doubt that social media has and is continuing to radically change the beauty industry. There are good things that have come out of this change, and some not so great things. I like that now everything is more transparent, with customers and brands interacting with each other on Instagram – it makes brands listen and customers be heard, it’s so great! It pushes brands to be better, communicate openly and not just say “we care” but actually care.It’s great that there is more diversity; everyone can be a creator, a model. And it’s not just Kardashian-inspired accounts or perfect cute girls, there are some many great unconventional beauty pages – beauty is not about the pretty face and it’s so great there is a move towards this direction.What is worrying is the amount of beauty brands and accounts – everything blurs and it’s really hard to distinguish one from another. It’s harder to trust them too.I met a lot of great people through Instagram and it allows me to do what I like and provided a great worldwide audience, other than that – I love it for this, I also hate it for so many other things and can’t wait until they disable the “likes” feature like they did with comments.You were candid about taking a break from your account at the end of 2018 and into early 2019. What did you learn on this hiatus?I am still finding it a little hard to post and be social because I think my personal priorities have shifted. I turned 30 and went on a fascinating journey to rediscover myself, think about what makes me happy, enjoy people, books and music. I’m trying to find a way to express things that became more important to me on Gelcream and it’s not creams and serums. I think I’m very close to finding harmony and balance and will be back on a regular very soon.How do you see Gelcream evolving and growing the future? What do you want to do more of?

Tobi Henney is model Barbara Palvin's longtime makeup artist. She wrote into ITG from Cannes, where she teamed up with Barbara once more for a few movie premieres. Here, she takes us through Barbara's look from last night, which includes not one, not two, but three (!!) lipsticks. We'll let Tobi take it from here. Dear ITG, I was just in Cannes with Barbara Palvin! We’ve been working together for the last seven years, and this week I flew out to prep her for a couple of events, including a movie premiere yesterday. We built her red carpet makeup around a very vampy, ombre, glossy lip Barbara saw and loved, so we went for super clean, fair skin with a really light contour to let the lips shine.

Turns out, similarly to painting, contouring is all about location—where you place color is equally as important as which color you’re actually working with. If you’re a talented enough painter (or makeup artist) you know exactly where to place certain shades to accentuate shadows, angles, or certain features of an object, which are important skills for effectively shaping the face. But what if you don’t dabble in one of those two careers and still want to learn how to contour? This was the dilemma I faced last week as I sat in front of my mirror, un-contoured and three minutes away from being late for a nice dinner. While I’d normally use a swipe or two of bronzer where I thought it should go, I had never tried to fully snatch my face… And now wasn’t the time to start. I wanted to level up my makeup for the night, but I clearly didn’t have time to do much. I didn’t need my cheekbones to look like they could cut glass— I just wanted something foolproof and quick. My salvation came, as it often does, in the form of a Tiktok. I looked up ‘contour hack’ and in thirteen seconds flat, makeup theorist Megan Lavallie bestowed upon me such great contouring knowledge that I wanted to scream it from the rooftops. “There’s this one spot on your cheek that if you poked a hole through it, it would touch your teeth. If you softly blend it out [after adding contour], it will create the most soft-looking, high cheekbones for those who want to look good from the side and the front.” And so, with my remaining two and a half minutes, all I had to do was find the spot on my cheek where I could feel my teeth, add a single dot of contour, and blend lightly. That was it!

Yesterday, Marc Jacobs presented his Spring 2017 collection, and as we've come to expect season after season, the beauty look was off the rails. François Nars handled makeup, with a pastel array of Nars Dual Intensity Eyeshadows. And then there was Guido Palau on hair. Those rainbow, woolen dreadlocks. Here's how Guido explained them backstage: "[Marc] was really inspired by director Lana Wachowski’s hair, which we used in the Spring 2016 campaign. She’s got this beautiful raw hair in her extensions. We also looked at different movements like rave culture, club kids, acid house, travelers, Boy George, Marilyn, and all sorts of things. He also really liked the idea of the volume in the hair—that’s where it all came from. Once we had the idea, we needed to figure out where the hair would come from. We found Jena on Etsy and she was down in Florida making dyed wool hair. We contacted her and she probably realized the amount of hair was needed when Marc was like ‘I want to see it in that shade, and that shade, and that shade, does it come in this shade? Can you do it in an antique green?’ Overall, we used about 12,500 yards of yarn. It was so overwhelming when I went in and saw the extent of her work—it’s all handmade. I mean, it was just racks of it. All just hanging in different colors. It was a very impressive visual.

Vaping is becoming more and more controversial as the health risks associated with it come to light. Surprise, surprise, the habit is not so great for skin either. Here, dermatologists weigh in on how vaping can affect your complexion.When vaping came onto the scene in the mid-2000s, it was heralded as the “much safer” alternative to smoking largely because it didn’t require tobacco to get that same nicotine high. Instead, the user inhales an aerosol, a.k.a. a “vapor.” Heat atomizes the “e-liquid” inside the vaping pen, which often consists of a not-so-pleasant concoction of propylene glycol, glycerin, nicotine, flavor, and other additives (some of which are quite harmful to the body).So… is Vaping Considered Bad for You?The truth is that we’re still learning a lot about the long-term effects of vaping because it’s such a recent invention. However, the CDC doesn’t approve of vaping — it even straight up calls it unsafe — and is trying to curb usage. We also know that as of 2019, there have been nearly 2000 reported cases of lung injury and 37 deaths associated with vaping.“I am concerned that the ingredients, particularly those found in black-market vaping products, are not regulated and we really do not yet know all of the potential health risks of inhaling these fine, ultrafine and nanoparticles,” says Dr. Hadley King, a board-certified dermatologist based in New York City. “The outbreak of severe vaping related pulmonary illness is testimony to this.”Dr. Gretching Frieling, a board-certified dermatopathologist, agrees, noting that vaping is “far from the innocent substitute” to cigarette smoking many first thought it was.RELATED: The Dangers of Tanning Beds For Your Skin and Health“Even without the tobacco, nicotine is highly addictive and can affect the developing brain. Also, some substances found in e-cigarette vapor have been linked to an increased risk of cancer,” she says. “Just like we didn’t know how bad cigarettes were in the 1960s, I fear that we don’t have the complete facts on vaping yet because it is relatively new.”Vaping and Your Skin According to our experts, the following side effects are the most common:Dry Skin:The ingredients you inhale and that come into contact with your skin can make skin very dry, says Dr. King. At best your skin looks lackluster and parched, at worse it can lead to itchy or painful flaking and even rashes.Accelerated Aging:Dr. Frieling says that the toxins in e-cigarettes make us look older sooner by accelerating the breakdown of collagen, which is the protein responsible for making skin look plump, firm, and smooth.Slower Wound Healing:“When you vape, nicotine impedes blood flow, which can have an effect on how quickly your wounds are able to heal,” says Dr. Frieling. “One study demonstrated that vaping slowed that healing after surgery — an extreme example of why nicotine isn’t good for skin health at any time.”It Can Worsen Existing Skin Conditions:If you have eczema, psoriasis, or are prone to general skin sensitivity, vaping can exacerbate these issues, notes Dr. Frieling. This is due to your skin coming into contact with the chemical vapors, and also because of reduced blood flow.Puffy Eyes: We mentioned that vaping causes dry skin, but in general it causes all-over dryness. Dr. King says this includes your eyes, which can lead to puffiness and even redness.Wrinkles Around Your Mouth:Dr. Frieling says, “Regardless of what vape pens or e-cigarettes do or don’t contain, you are still puckering your mouth more than a non-smoker would and this can lead to deep lines and wrinkles around the mouth.”Skin Cancer:Dr. Frieling says, “Compared to non-smokers, those who use e-cigarettes or cigarettes have twice the risk of developing a type of skin cancer called squamous cell carcinoma.”Bottom Line

“When I was growing up, I was obsessed with Beyoncé and Janet Jackson. I saw the breadth of what being a female artist could be through them—they were so commanding and they held this energetic spirit that helped me imagine what my life could be like if I ever made it out of my hometown. Dance was the path I took first because I got praise for it early on—and, I was quite self-conscious of my voice. But after 2017, I felt like I had reached the peak of my dance career when I was in Rihanna and N.E.R.D.’s ‘Lemon’ music video. I knew that that opportunity, to be a soloist and have a full creative concept devised around you, was so unique. To me, it doesn't get bigger than that, so I threw myself into film and landed in Hustlers and Barbie. Through these experiences, I finally garnered the confidence to pursue music. I figured I had to get out of my own way and do away with the narrative in my head that I wasn’t ready. Since then, I’ve come out with my EP, Mettenarrative, and I’ve worked with producers like Zone who have helped me identify my sound, which is sticky pop and alternative R&B. And I’ve been fortunate enough to perform my own shows, but also to open for artists like Jungle and Taylor Swift. SKINCAREA lot of beauty secrets aren’t necessarily about the products you use but about your lifestyle—little habits, like sleeping on the opposite side of the pillow every night, are important to me. I don’t touch my face unless I have clean hands. I try my best not to pop a pimple. I don’t ever put my phone on my face to take a call—I use my Airpods. I had bad acne as a teen and my self-confidence really struggled because of it. I took Accutane for a while, and that was brutal in a different way. I had these bad breakouts and then I was dealing with the side effects of the medication. But I learned that I needed to have a consistent routine. I double cleanse with Skinfix’s foaming oil cleanser. My skin is really sensitive. One time, I used a vitamin C serum that caused my skin to burn, and this was the only cleanser that didn’t make my skin feel tight and flaky. I cleanse in the morning, but especially at night. Or even if I have a rehearsal in the middle of the day, I cleanse after, too. If I’m taking makeup off, I grab Clinique’s Take The Day Off balm. I used it a lot when I was filming Barbie and the makeup was so heavy. For my eyes though, I like Novehea's cleansing wipes because they’re so good for sensitive skin.

Are you noticing your skin isn’t as smooth and firm as it used to be? Crepey skin can be a real confidence dampener, but the right cream can make a big difference. Our guide zeroes in on top creams that promise to rejuvenate crepey skin, bringing back its youthful bounce. Let’s find your new skincare hero!

Richelle Marty, the COO of medical spa Plump, met her partner, Dom, in 2017 while she was trying to install infrared saunas at 11 Howard for a pop-up with HigherDose, her employer at the time. “I had no idea what I was doing or where I was going when I got there because the only time I ever went to 11 Howard was to go to The Blond,” she says. When she asked for help, Dom, then the hotel’s director of food and beverage, came to her rescue. “It wasn't my job to make room keys, but I saw this beautiful woman standing around and I took my chance and offered to help,” he says. “Of course, I was hitting on her.” Eight years later, the couple is married and expecting their first baby—a little girl—at the end of July. How did they get here? Saunas, of course, blistered feet, and a whole lot of skincare and hair products. Naturally, we had to ask them all about it in celebration of Valentine’s Day. Keep reading below. Richelle Marty:I’m pretty sure I was the one who asked Dom to go on a date to Kiki’s because that was my favorite place in the whole world. Dom Marty:We walked from the hotel to the restaurant and my feet were killing me. This was back when I was trying to be fancy, so I was wearing slacks and a button-down shirt with the classic 2017 Oxfords and no socks combo. My feet were so blistered. But it was a match made in heaven because after Kiki’s, we kissed on the rooftop of an apartment building.